• Robert Siodmak – Der Schatz der Azteken AKA Treasure of the Aztecs (1965)

    Robert Siodmak1961-1970AdventureGermany

    Dr. Karl Sternau supports the Mexican national president Juarez against the army of Austrian Maximilian who have occupied the country. Karl and Juarez hope to fund their fight with the recently discovered, legendary treasure of the Aztecs.Read More »

  • John Guillermin – The Towering Inferno (1974)

    John Guillermin1971-1980ActionArchitectureDramaUSA

    Plot: Doug Roberts, Architect, returns from a long vacation to find work nearly completed on his skyscraper. He goes to the party that night concerned he’s found that his wiring specifications have not been followed and that the building continues to develop short circuits. When the fire begins, Michael O’Halleran is the chief on duty as a series of daring rescues punctuate the terror of a building too tall to have a fire successfully fought from the ground.Read More »

  • Alexandre Astruc – Evariste Galois (1965)

    Alexandre Astruc1961-1970FranceShort Film

    Galois is practicing shooting in preparation for a duel the very next day. His last night.

    Quote:
    Champ de Galois… où l’on retrouve les mouvements d’appareil “premingeriens” dont parle Douchet à propos d’Astruc – de même qu’on y retrouve, à travers le destin d’Evariste Galois, ce qu’il décrit comme “la tragédie lyrique et romantique de l’adolescent à la recherche de l’absolu” – des mouvements d’autant plus appropriés que, dans la séquence du duel, ils font du pré un espace purement géométrique, pour ne pas dire galoisien.Read More »

  • Gustaf Molander – Till Österland AKA To the Orient (1926)

    Gustaf Molander1921-1930DramaScandinavian Silent CinemaSweden

    Quote:
    Gustaf Molander was the one who primarily would be asked to continue Sjöström’s and Stiller’s work. He was also the film company’s chief negotiator with Lagerlöf, and someone she did not like. “Molander has just left. He is a remarkably dead and uninteresting character, although he is such a fine person. The matter concerned that which you had just told me about, to ask whether I had any good ideas in stock, which I could pass on to them […] He was not very informed about my novels, I must say […].

    Swedish Film: An Introduction And Reader (2014)Read More »

  • Manoel de Oliveira – Visita ou Memórias e Confissões AKA Memories and Confessions (1982/1993/2015)

    Manoel de Oliveira1991-2000ArthouseDocumentaryPortugal

    A docu-drama that follows Manoel de Oliveira’s life during the times of dictatorship in Portugal.

    Quote:
    73-year-old De Oliveira decides to make a personal movie that his audience will only know once heis dead. In 1982, the director takes the decision to make a movie about (and in) his (ex) house, in which he lived for over 40 years. The initial still shot is held for a long while with the presence oftrees in the garden of his house in Oporto. De Oliveira himself introduces the film and speaks all the credits out. The voices of a man and a woman guide us for most of the first part, in a sort of preliminary and formal tour around the totality of the house. They remain out of frame and the camera perspective is not necessarily theirs.Read More »

  • Arnaud des Pallières – Poussières d’Amérique (2011)

    Arnaud des Pallières2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalFrance

    IMDB so-called plot :
    “A dream-like story of America put together out of silent-film material from the archives, interspersed with many different accounts to be read, some of them in verse.”

    ““This is a logbook. A film which has been improvised. A poem that is slightly too long and made from other films parts, bits of sentences, pieces of music and sounds from all around. It was written in the language of cinema, without dialogue or commentary. It is both a silent movie and a wordy one as it relates many stories, twenty or so, short, minor and forming what is called History with a capital H when put together.Read More »

  • Robert Guédiguian – Gloria Mundi (2019)

    Robert Guédiguian2011-2020DramaFrance

    In Marseille, a family gathers for the birth of baby Gloria. But despite the joy, the young parents have fallen on tough times. As they try to make ends meet, they reconnect with Gloria’s ex-convict grandfather.Read More »

  • Joyce Chopra – Joyce at 34 (1972)

    Joyce Chopra1971-1980DocumentaryUSA

    The film’s documentation of being new to parenting is candid. It begins with the filmmaker talking of her debilitation as a pregnant woman. The pregnancy feels endless. She wants to return to work. After giving birth, Joyce attempts to regain her position as a working filmmaker while also caring for her new baby. The changes to both her and her husband’s professional lives are remarkable and frustrating. The new parents love the baby, Sarah, but must recognize the limitations she puts on their careers. Joyce tries to edit her latest project with the baby on her lap, Sarah grasping for the film stock; her husband, Tom Cole, a writer, attempts a meeting with his editor during the baby’s feeding time.Read More »

  • Ralph Steiner – Mechanical Principles (1931)

    Ralph Steiner1931-1940ExperimentalUSA

    Quote:
    “The film presents a deceptively ‘open’ series of images of gears and pistons that transfer movement from vertical to rotary directions. Musical in its repetitive visual form, it now seems akin to Charles Sheeler’s paintings and photographs of railroad locomotive gears and wheels, a tribute to the machine age.” – Robert A. HallerRead More »

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